Serve to Win: The 14-Day Gluten-Free Plan for Physical and Mental Excellence Author: Visit Amazon's Novak Djokovic Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0345548981 | Format: PDF
Serve to Win: The 14-Day Gluten-Free Plan for Physical and Mental Excellence Description
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About the Author
Novak Djokovic is a Serbian tennis player who is ranked World #1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time.
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- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Zinc Ink; 1 edition (August 20, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0345548981
- ISBN-13: 978-0345548986
- Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
"Serve to Win: The 14-Day Gluten-Free Plan for Physical and Mental Excellence" by famous tennis player Novak ?okovic is not usual diet book, but nice mix of memoirs, dietary recipes and motivational literature.
When back in 2011 he won 10 tournaments and had won 43 consecutive matches Novak was able to finally overcome Federer and Nadal, and become world No.1 tennis player.
From the first time he came on tennis scene it was obvious that he had extreme amount of talent, but had also problems with health and injuries. There were lot of occasions when he had to call time-out during match due to a need of medical help, he had problems with excessive fatigue and breathing. Due to this issues he began to be criticized in the media as a hypochondriac or not fit enough.
But the problem was not in any of the above but in his diet. He changed his diet after he met Dr. Cetojevic, who assumed that problems were caused due to food intolerance. After Novak gave up gluten for 2 weeks he immediately saw and felt the difference and it was obvious that he have to eliminate dairy and gluten from his meals. The result was that he lost some weight, but gain lot of energy and flexibility, the problems with breathing ceased and then happened all the above-mentioned successes in 2011.
As mentioned, the book is mostly about nutrition and the effects this new nutrition plan had on his life but it's not only about his diet. It gives reader some interesting facts about how he started playing tennis, his family background, describing support he got from his family that helped him to overcome problems and become the best tennis player in the world.
I'm a big fan of Novak Djokovic, so I purchased "Serve to Win" to learn more about his life. In that respect, the book is a bit of a let-down, given that it is not a traditional sports autobiography and focuses more on his recent diet changes and resulting tennis success. Novak does share some stories about his life, including a few passages about growing up in war-torn Serbia. At night, his family would hide in a bomb shelter, and in the day, he would practice tennis. He's lead an extraordinary life, which is probably part of the reason that he is so popular in Serbia today.
However, the book spends most of its time discuss his health issues over the years, particularly the various breathing and fitness concerns that plagued his early career. These problems climaxed during a long five-set match at the Australian Open in 2010 against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Toward the end of that match, Djokovic crashed - he ran out of energy and lost the final two sets quickly. He talks about how frustrating it was to train so much and still have so little gas left in the tank at the end of long matches. The match happened to be watched by a Serbian nutritionist, who suggested that Novak be tested for allergies, especially gluten. Fast forward a year, and Novak is experiencing an incredible winning streak - winning three majors and finishing 2012 as the #1 player.
Djokovic's gluten-free diet is explained in detail. I don't plan on using this diet, but I do appreciate the balanced tone he takes in discussing it. He doesn't claim that it's for everyone or that it's a miracle diet. He simply sets forth what it did for him and how he follows it. Novak even cites research on its effectiveness, while maintaining that he's not a medical expert and so forth.
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